Research

While Black America was getting their act together on whether they would go through all the red tape involved in the adoption process, time did not sit still. A West German weekly publication, “Stern”, published a feature called”Mammies fur die Negerlein” or Mammes for the little Negroes “(H. Frehrenbach, 2005) which made Black America furious. In July 1953 a number of news publications editors received a letter from Mrs. Mabel Grammer. As a result this “Editors note:” was published,” Through Mrs.

The “Pittsburg Courier and the Baltimore Afro-American newspaper published appeals for “brown babies” that got the attention of the NAACP which remained in hot debate on the topic of whether to accept us as part of Black American families in the U.S. by adoption or colonize us all somewhere in South America. There was some confusion as to whether this was their (NAACP) debate at all.

The process of adoption and entry into the U.S. for these children was streamlined by the passing of, Public Law 203, Chp. 336, and p 400-407, the Refugee Relief Act of 1953. Section 4, subsection (14.)(b) and Subsection 5(a) & (b)1,& 2 of this law specifically addresses “eligible orphans adopted” by quotas “not to exceed” 4000, release stipulations for qualified birth parents of the an alien child that must be met on entry to the U.S., and “proper care” of the child by an adopting U.S. citizen and spouse.

We can thank the public relations efforts of Josephine Baker as she fashioned her “Rainbow Tribe” through the adoption of the “12 or 13 children of different ethnic backgrounds” (J.C. Baker “The Hungry Heart”). This put a new twist to the definition of
Colored family in the U.S.
We can also thank Ebony Magazine’s treatment of a story about Mrs. Ethel Butler, a teacher in Chicago in 1947, whose pursuit to adopt a boy and a girl yielded 2 “half-Negro waifs.”(H. Fehrenback, 2005) It took her almost four years to get those two children

We were the ‘children of misfortune,’ seen as “mixed-race blacks,” German 'occupation children’ classified as “racially other” (Yara-Colette Lemke Munia de Faria, 2002) with almost white to dark mahogany pigment, brown straight to curly hair, wider noses and fuller lips when compared to traditionally white German children.

We are the “Brown babies,” also known as the “Rhineland bastards”, born as “lower class” German “citizens” (H. J. Massaquoi 2001) between 1944 and 1959. We are the children no one wanted or could not adopt until the early 1950’s. We “were perceived and treated as ‘different from Germans’ ( E. Drolshagen,2005) as we were ignored by our fathers with the help of the U.S. military, given up by our mothers, and conveniently ‘put into baskets, pushed down the river,’ and “forgotten” (E.Simonsen, 2005) by the governments of our birth country.

If mother and child remained together both would share prolonged humiliation and social segregation in Germany as outcasts and traitors. Reportedly some of these mothers

The post war periods brought with it an additional presence of occupation soldiers which was proportional to the rise in illegitimate births during that period. Those children were known as the ‘children of the occupation’, “Besatzungskinder” (K. Ericson and E. Simonsen, 2005) or “German war babies.” American GI’s known also as occupation soldiers were ordered and rotated to other combat zones in the world like Korea. They were (KIA) killed in action or returned home leaving their foreign children and the foreign
War behind them.

The Allied soldiers of WWII were made up of primarily American, Soviet, British, Norwegian and French nationals.

The Allied soldiers of WWII were made up of primarily American, Soviet, British, Norwegian and French nationals.